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Celiwe Ross is thriving on challenges

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TRANSFORMED Celiwe Ross, head of human capital at Old Mutual. Picture: Old Mutual
TRANSFORMED Celiwe Ross, head of human capital at Old Mutual. Picture: Old Mutual

Passionate, resilient and definitely a corporate gladiator of sorts.

These are just some of the words that describe my first impression of Old Mutual head of human capital Celiwe Ross when I met the Sowetan corporate executive at the company’s office in the heart of Sandton, Johannesburg, this week.

Having earned a reputation as a rising star in the corporate world because of her appetite for new challenges, Ross is anything but shy about the lemons life threw her way and the lemonade she made and now enjoys.

She was one of the first black female mining engineers in the country.

Ross was born and raised in Soweto and started school at St Theresa’s Convent School in Coronationville, western Johannesburg.

She and her identical twin sister, Siphosethu, have been academic achievers from a very young age.

“My father was a human resources manager and my mother was a nurse. My dad only had girls and believed in the education and empowerment of women,” she said.

As a talented learner, Ross’ earliest career ambition was to be a neurosurgeon but, after a visit to the operating table with her mother, she was put off that idea for good.

“When we were eight, we were involved in a car accident. My sister was badly injured and she was attended to by a neurosurgeon – so I thought I wanted to do that,” she said.

After four years at the Catholic school, the twins’ academic heroics earned them a scholarship to the Deutsche Internationale Schule Johannesburg, in Parktown.

“My parents had a problem with the lack of integration because there were a lot of German classes. There was one English class that only had black, Indian and coloured children – even though the intention of the school was to integrate people. However, the integration only happened in high school and not the lower grades.

“So we only stayed a year because it was 1990 and Soweto was ungovernable. We were moved to a Pietermaritzburg boarding school called The Wykeham Collegiate after we were offered a scholarship that covered part of the fees.”

After five years and with the high school fees, though partly funded, taking their toll on the family, Celiwe and her sister were once again moved.

They went back to Gauteng where they attended Parktown High School for Girls, and she matriculated with flying colours.

She enrolled at the University of the Witwatersrand and opted for mining engineering, only to learn a lesson in her first year of study.

“I just thought it was fascinating to do and we both got scholarships. I was initially sponsored by Sasol but ended up with BHP Billiton because I failed for the first time in my life.

“Fundamentally, I think I just underestimated the transition from high school to university, but it turned out well.

“For me that was probably one of the best experiences I have ever gone through. I was embarrassed, and no one expected it. It was a shock but the best thing because it humbled me,” she said.

After graduating, BHP Billiton recruited her and posted her as a trainee mine planner to their chrome operations in the town of Steelpoort in Limpopo.

The person who was instrumental in recruiting her was Mike Teke. At the time he was BHP Billiton’s local head of HR, but he is now chief executive of Seriti Resources.

After a year at the mine, she was moved to the Ingwe coal mine in Witbank.

“We were selling to industrial consumers. It was a great learning experience and I got to understand difference aspects of the commercial side of mining,” she said of the period she spent as coal marketing manager on the tail end of which she was relocated to the company’s offices in downtown Johannesburg.

She then decided to take time off and headed to the University of Cape Town to pursue her Master of Business Administration (MBA), which was funded by Standard Bank.

“After getting my MBA, I joined Standard Bank as a manager in the project team,” she said.

In 2011, when the bank was expanding in the rest of Africa, she accepted a position to head mining and infrastructure finance in the west Africa region and was based in Accra, Ghana.

She relocated to the west African country despite going through a difficult time in her private life, as she was getting divorced and had a son who was under two years old.

Speaking about the four years she spent in Ghana, Ross had nothing but great memories and even greater lessons from that time that she described as a opportunity that changed her life.

The experiences significantly shaped her outlook on transformation, corporate excellence and even her dress sense, she said.

“It was a self-discovery thing for me and self-awakening. I completely fell in love with everything and myself,” she said.

After her stint in Ghana, she was promoted to be the head of Standard Bank’s mining, energy and infrastructure finance in the east and west Africa regions, making her one of the most senior black executives in the company.

“That bothered me. Conceptually I just had an issue with why I was the only one or one of the few,” she said.

She then joined Egon Zehnder, the world’s largest privately owned executive search firm, as financial services consultant for the continent.

Within two years, she left to join Old Mutual to take up a leadership advisory role at a time when the company was preparing for its listing.

She joined the office of former chief executive of emerging markets Ralph Mupita, but when he resigned she was reassigned to be the executive assistant to Old Mutual chairperson Trevor Manuel.

That was only for two months before she joined the then new chief executive Peter Moyo as his chief of staff in July 2017.

With her extensive understanding of the business in its entirety from working closely with Moyo, especially during the period when the company pulled off the managed separation on time and within budget, Ross decided to apply for her current position, which she was offered and she accepted.

A self-confessed spiritual and religious woman, the mother of one and a wife is very passionate about education and family.


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